~ culinary and horticultural life on a Spanish farm

The Butchers Art

Last week I was in London where I was treated to a course on pork butchery at The Ginger Pig. Then this week I visited the gallery of Andres Garcia Ibanez, one of Spains foremost contemporary artists, who has recently added a selection of paintings from his series Naturalezas Muertas to the anthology of his works.The gallery in Olula Del Rio is where the artist has his house and studio, is a little cultural oasis in this very rural part of spain. Although I have included here as a tempter for you, two of his meat pictures, being a blog about food, any of out of his recent series of portraits was what I wanted to take home and look at for a long period of time. If you are in the vicinity, go and have a look.

On to the real flesh and blood and my date with a pig. Half a pig to be exact.

The roast in the final picture was treat for us after we had done lots of tiring sawing, cutting, chining and tying of pieces of pork.

The course was very good. They are not trying to turn you into a master butcher in three hours, but to have you come away with a much better understanding of which cuts come from which part of the animal, and what the best use of those cuts would be. On top of that they give you a roast dinner of their excellent pork featuring the best crackling that I have ever had, and I am not normally a crackling fan, and a good joint to take home and cook yourself. Highly recommended.